Kyiv
by MLaw
Summary: He returned to Russia on a dangerous mission for the C.I.A. Would they betray him again? He stops in Kyiv for the first time since he was a child...during the war years. There he finds a small miracle. TBC Teaser for "The Dancing in the Dark Affair"


Author's note: I found a silver ruble coin dated 1896 in my coin jar, you know the one we all dump our spare change into. Have no clue how I came to have it or where it came from? It became the inspiration for this story, that and the tune "Seven-Eleven" by Moishe's Bagle, you can google it to listen to it. This piece will probably be expanded into a longer mission-based story. Part of my Illya series.

**"Kyiv"**

He opened the door to the small taverna, letting a gust of cold air come in with him.

A few of the patrons looked up, then guarded their glances against the stranger. He had a look about him to them; in their minds he could be KGB, though he heard someone with the balls to mumble "Zakryt' porklyatuyu dver'_close the damn door!"

He stepped up the he bar, removing his fur hat from his head, unbuttoning his coat, but not removing it.

"Vy novichok zdes' ne tak li_you are new here are you not?" asked the barkeep.

"Nyet, ne sovsem_no, not really" the auburn-haired man half hid a smile, "I just have not been here in a very long time, since I was a child."

The man behind the bar stepped back, looking at him for a minute as if he were trying to remember the man's face. "Yes I can hear that now, you have a Kyiv accent. Judging by your age that would have put you here during the Great Patriotic War."

"You are a good judge of age."

"Some things you just learn to pick up. There are many things that I see and hear while serving men their drink. Your family...?" He asked as he poured the man a vodka.

"Are all gone, they died."he finished the sentence for him, surprising himself at his candor.

"Sadly as are many from that time, the city was nearly wiped out."

He held up a worn coin, a single silver ruble with the bearded profile of Czar Nicholas II on the obverse, on the reverse was the crowned double eagle withe the shieid and chain on the breast, holding the sceptre and imperial orb, below that was the date 1896. The barkeep could see a sadness in the mans bright blue eyes as he stared at it.

'This is all I have left of my family; this coin belonged to my Grandfather." the young man said.

" I was told it was his lucky coin. It must be so, as I found it in the ruins of my Grandmother's dacha today. It was all that my babushka had left that was his. The dacha was destroyed, but this has been there since 1943 so it has lain undisturbed for twenty five years." his voice faded for a moment, "as have the remains of my baby sister."

He swallowed his glass of vodka, listening as the musicians played; two accordions, a mandolin and a balalaika . It was a melody that cried out to his soul, his melancholy Russian spirit. The rhythm was that of seven-eleven, gypsy-like haunting; calling to mind the memories of the gypsy camp of his Uncle Vanya. He watched and listened as the musicians lost themselves in the melody. It drew him into his past like a spectral hand reaching out, calling to him to come home.

It was a small smoke-filled tavern selling only state approved liquor and modest meals. The place was filled with men huddling together at the rough-hewn tables, speaking in whispers; workers dressed in poor clothing. Their eyes empty as were their lives. The vodka they drank served but to deaden their spirits against the control over their mundane existence; the Russian winters served to numb their corporeal bodies.

The U.S.S.R. had just adopted a new five day work week, and what did workers do with that extra day, but spend it drinking. The government did not want to admit it; but alcoholism was a major problem; it decreased worker productivity. If they cold not buy their vodka, they made it in illegal stills.

The innkeeper poured him another drink." Ty v poryadki tovarishcha_you alright komrade?"

The stranger nodded quietly, lost in his thoughts.

"Kto vy_who are you? Maybe I knew your family or perhaps someone here did?"

"Nikto. Ya Nikto_no one. I am no one. "He swallowed his drink, turning his attention back to the music. A young man sitting at a worn piano joined in as did an old man on violin; picking up the tempo. One of the men at the tables pulled out a polished brass darbuka, a Turkish hand-drum.

He tossed the the ruble to the man behind the bar, but he refused to take the old coin.

"Nyet, vy dolzhny imet' eto_no, you should keep it. We all lost much back then, better you should have something to hold one little thing is your link to your past."

He held up the coin between his fingers, looking at at for a moment. "This is more than I had left after the war. Keep it as a reminder, let it bring to mind your family, let your memories of them survive as this coin has all these, years waiting for you to come back to claim it. It was here for you, treasure it as it is a small miracle that it remained there for you to find."

Illya took the coin back from the man, holding it tightly in his hand. "Spacibo."

"What was your family's name?"

"It was Kuryakin." he said, breaking his cover.

"Kuryakin" repeated the man, as if committing it to memory," as long as one person remembers that name, they will live."

"That was the same thing the woman he had met at the ruins of the dacha had said to him," he thought, " perhaps it was true?" He was not a sentimental man, but the coin suddenly felt important to him after all.

"Your name?" Illya asked.

"Rabinovich, Elijah Rabinovich. I was named for my father. We never knew what happened to him, probably he is in the Babi Yar with the rest of my people."

Illya smiled; remembering the man's father; meeting him and learning from him in the partisan camp in Bykivnia forest. He too was named for the man; but he said nothing to the barkeep.*

He took one last around the place, at the people...his people. The voices, the music the scent of food cooking. He might not see this again for a long time, if he ever returned at all. Just for a brief moment, he allowed himself to savor it as he gripped that coin.

Illya Kuryakin bundled his coat about him, putting his sable ushanka on his head as he walked out into the cold night. A light snow drifted haphazardly across the cobblestone street as he crossed it; disappearing from beneath the light of a lone street lamp on Andriivskiy uzviz as he returned on his journey to Moskva, then on to his ultimate goal of the closed city of Gorky.

He had to focus and not let his memories distract him from completing this dangerous assignment. But the coin weighed heavily in his hand as he shoved it in his coat pocket to ward off the cold.

* ref. "Beginnings"


End file.
